Braised Pig Trotters Recipe

NICI-Mania recipe time! We have added a new Cooking Recipes tab on the menu above for this segment. You can browse through all the recipes we have cooked in the past and for the future. Milo Gorilla is gonna show us how to cook a very nice Malaysia style braised pig trotters. Maybe a little fusion with Taiwan culinary style.

Let's see...we have a pack of pig trotters already chopped up into pieces from the market.

Spices for cooking braised pig trotters are most importantly - star anise, lots of garlic, a pathetic leftover'd spring onion and some white pepper.

Let's start cooking our braised pig trotters. Pig trotters or pork legs or pork knuckles whichever way you like to call it are tasty and very nutritious. Most women are afraid of eating pig trotters because they find it fatty and disgusting but they are rich in collagen! Collagen is a magical protein for your skin and muscle! If you want to look beautiful, you will want to eat more pig trotters, especially braised pig trotters.

Hard boiled egg, bean curd and bean curd skin are optional but Milo Gorilla loves it.

In a heated pan, we add some oil to sauté the garlic and spring onion stalk until they turn golden brown.

And we add in the star anise and white pepper. Spices cannot be fried too long, they will turn bitter, thats why we only add them after our garlic and spring onion are browned.

Now we add in all the pig trotters

Sauté the meat until they are slightly browned so that it is more fragrant. Sounds familiar? In our previous Beef Stew Recipe, we fried the beef same way too. Cooking is very simple, you just have to grasp the concept, every dish is the same.

Now we add a small cup of soy sauce over the browned pig trotters. Do not add any water yet, as frying the soy sauce in hot pan releases another level of fragrant aroma into the meat.

After the soy sauce smell very nice, add in water just enough to cover the ingredients. Hard boiled eggs and bean curd can be added now. Bring to boil. Yes we only added soy sauce, buy an expensive one so that it has more flavor. Either way, you may opt to add chicken stock instead of water.

Cover the lid and reduce to small heat. Simmer for 1.5hours. Be patient Milo, our tasty braised pig trotters will be ready soon.

Now we can cut up some bean curd skin and add them into the braised pig trotters. No hurry as the bean curd skin is already cooked.

Milo does it smell good? "Yes! I'm hungry already!" We're hungry too!

Our NICI Gorilla is gonna have a fabulous braised pig trotters dinner tonight!

Usually coriander is added on top for additional fragrance and decoration. Notice how much the broth has dried up and it turns a little sticky. Thats your wonderful collagen being forced out from the pig trotters.

Note: 1.5hours for cooking this dish is a personal standard. The meat is not too soft nor too hard. Skin is still a little springy. If you like the meat and skin to melt in your mouth, cook it for about 4hours, sometimes I like it that way. Hakka style braised pig trotters only cooks for 0.5 hours as they like the skin extremely springy. Your mileage may vary, so cook it the way you like. There's never a fix standard in stewing meat.

We haven't seen Milo Gorilla on NICI-Mania for a long time and we have not done any recipes in a while too. Hope Milo Gorilla fans are happy to see him back in action, more to come! By the way, we are quite surprised to see Milo leading the poll for your favorite NICI plush on the right panel. If you want him to win, Gorilla lovers you know what to do! There will be a mystery price for the winning NICI plush :)

Also, we will update the braised pig trotters recipe on the recipe page soon.